20. Paige #2
His mouth curves. “Anyone who knows me has already figured out what happened.”
“Then the Slades need fewer hobbies.”
“They have plenty. Interfering is the favorite.”
Standing with him in full daylight feels more intimate than hiding behind the locked door. The tack room was urgent and filthy and exactly what I wanted. This is warm and easy. He takes his time studying my face, even though both of us have people waiting.
“We should get back,” I say. “Josie will come looking for us.”
“My mother has her.”
“That’s not reassuring. Deven can organize a search party using nothing but one raised eyebrow.”
“True.” Aiden takes my hand and laces our fingers together. “She probably already knows where we were.”
“Your family’s complete lack of boundaries is fascinating.”
“You’ll adjust.”
The words are light, but they carry the same quiet confidence as his hand around mine. He presents a future as fact, with a place already waiting for me inside it.
He leads me across the yard toward the foreman’s house. My body is still pleasantly loose, and every few steps, the brush of his thumb over mine sends me straight back to that table.
“You’re smiling,” he says.
“So are you.”
“I got what I wanted.”
“You took my orders in a tack room.”
“I got you.” His gaze slides over me with slow satisfaction. “Mine.”
The word still sparks low in my stomach. I chose it in there. I gave it to him because possession can be powerful when it stays inside the boundaries I draw.
Out here, he says it like the matter is settled.
“Aiden, about that qualification I gave you…”
“Daddy!”
Josie races around the side of the house with Deven following behind her, and Aiden turns toward his daughter, cutting off the rest.
Josie barrels into Aiden’s legs and wraps both arms around one of them.
“There you are. Grandma said you were checking a door.”
Deven’s raised eyebrow tells me that was the most child-appropriate version of events she could offer.
Aiden lifts Josie into his arms. “The lock works.”
“I conducted a second inspection,” I say. “Very thorough.”
His mouth twitches.
Deven looks between our flushed faces. “I can see that.”
My cheeks flush, which only makes Aiden’s smile widen.
“I need a drink,” I say.
“Conveniently, that’s why we came looking for you.” Deven turns toward the porch. “Hudson made lemonade, and I made sure he didn’t ruin it by getting creative.”
“What does Grandpa put in lemonade?” Josie asks.
“Last time, rosemary.”
“It tasted like a tree.”
Aiden sets her down, and she takes his hand. He reaches for mine with the other, linking us together as we follow Deven around the house.
The porch is shaded and quiet, with a pitcher sweating on the table beside four glasses and a plate holding one enormous chocolate-chip cookie. I sit beside Aiden on the porch swing while Josie climbs into the chair across from us.
Deven pours the lemonade. “I saved the cookie for Paige.”
Josie’s mouth drops open. “The whole one?”
“She worked all morning.”
“So did Daddy.”
“Daddy can survive without a cookie.”
Aiden rests his arm across the back of the swing behind me. “I see where I rank.”
“You’ve known where you rank for thirty-five years,” Deven says.
I break the cookie in half and offer him a piece.
He takes it with a satisfied look. “That’s why she’s my girlfriend.”
The label lands softly, a better fit than the silence we’ve been keeping, and I like hearing him say it without hesitation.
Deven smiles at me. “Future Slades always learn to feed them eventually.”
My fingers pause around my glass.
Aiden laughs. “You’re going to scare her off.”
“I said future. I didn’t schedule the wedding.”
“Yet,” I say.
“Exactly.” Deven lifts her glass toward me. “You understand us already.”
Aiden looks so pleased that anyone else might mistake this for the easiest conversation in the world. His hand rests on my thigh, warm and familiar, while his mother talks about me joining the family and frames the question as timing rather than whether I want the role.
“We may want to hold off on ordering monogrammed towels,” I say.
“No towels,” Josie says. “Paige likes books.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “Finally, someone understands appropriate gifts.”
Josie nods with complete seriousness. “Paige is important to Daddy. He lets her pick the music even when it has no cowboys.”
Aiden squeezes my thigh. “She is important.”
I let that part settle, a solid warmth in my chest. I want to matter to him. I want Josie to know I matter to him. I even want to sit on this porch, drink tree-free lemonade, and listen to Deven torment her son.
I want all of it because I keep choosing it.
Josie slides out of her chair and comes to stand in front of me. “Will you read my horse book after lunch? Only three chapters because Grandma said I can’t ask for seven.”
“One chapter,” Deven says.
Josie studies me. “Two is between one and three.”
I laugh. “Two chapters.”
She throws both hands into the air. “Paige is staying!”
Aiden leans over and kisses my temple, his smile still there as Josie runs inside to find the book.
I settle against him, but Deven’s words remain lodged beneath the warmth.
Inside the tack room, mine meant I chose him.
Out here, it means they’ve already chosen a future for me.